From the broken asphalt of the open-air Galiwinku Saturday Night Disco, the Chooky Dancers of Elcho Island captured 1.4 million YouTube fans worldwide with their exuberant interpretation of Zorba the Greek…

Elcho Island is home to a remote Northern Territory community called Galiwinku. In Ngurru-milmarrmiriw (Wrong Skin),  Elcho Island community and Elders collaborate with award-winning director Nigel Jamieson (Honour Bound) to create a Romeo and Juliet tale of forbidden love in a community where the complex laws of ‘skin’ and clan define all relationships.

Ngurru-milmarramiriw (pronounced nurru-mill-murra-myrew) is a contemporary Indigenous dance theatre piece, combining traditional Indigenous and contemporary dance to create a unique Australian work.

Performed by Yolgnu artists include the wildly spirited Chooky Dancers – whose unbridled interpretations include everything from Bollywood to Taiwanese martial arts alongside traditional creation stories – Wrong Skin also reveals how new technologies, in the hands of the island’s media-savvy youth, can connect the remote with the global and inspire us all.

In loving memory of Frank.

“Without question, Wrong Skin is a vibrant celebration of the ingenuity and energy of youth. The playful, outward-looking tone and the ebullient dynamism of its performers make for a lively cultural spectacle.”  The Age

“Ngurrumilmarrrmiriyu not only engagingly reveals a part of Australia rarely explored on urban stages, but also takes audiences on a rich, wild ride with nary a dull moment from go to whoa.”  Herald Sun

“Jamieson has put together a multimedia spectacular that enacts the cultural contradictions of contemporary globalism, where Yolgnu, in one of the most remote regions of Australia, download Bollywood and hiphop to their mobile phones and cheerfully appropriate Singin’ in the Rain into traditional dance…The whole show powerfully reveals the beauty of this ancient culture, its adaptiveness and curiosity, while unsparingly showing the conditions in which it survives.”  Theatre Notes